Dear America, from Ahmadi-Nejad

By Gareth Smyth in Tehran

Financial Times

Published: November 29 2006

Having been ignored when he wrote to George W. Bush earlier this year,
President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran sought to appeal over his head on
Wednesday by releasing a “letter to the American people” asserting his criticism
of US policies in the Middle East.

The letter, issued at the United Nations in New York, seemed geared as much
towards opinion in Iran and the Muslim world as towards Americans. It mentioned
neither Iran’s controversial nuclear programme nor Lebanon, where Iran’s ally
Hizbollah fought a war against Israel in the summer.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad wrote this year to both the US president and Angela Merkel,
the German chancellor, but neither replied. In a change of approach, Iran’s
president has now stressed the “common concerns” of Iranians and Americans as
“God-fearing, truth-loving and justice-seeking” people.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad drew a clear line between Americans and their government but
also addressed the Democratic party winners of the mid-term US elections with a
plea to “alleviate some of the global resentment ... of the US” if they wanted
to avoid disappointing the American people.

But the Iranian president emphasised two causes fuelling strong resentment in
the Arab and Muslim worlds: the Israel-Palestinian conflict and Iraq.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad did not repeat his past expressions of doubt over the Jewish
Holocaust but instead denounced the “Zionist regime” for “driving millions of
the inhabitants of Palestine out of their homes”. He backed the right of all
Palestinian refugees to return – a demand Israel regards as a threat to its
existence.

Over Iraq, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad condemned the US military presence for doing
nothing to “rebuild the ruins” as “terrorism has grown exponentially”.

The mothers and relatives of US soldiers had, he said, “displayed their
discontent with the presence of their sons and daughters in a land thousands of
miles away from US shores”.

As his letter appeared in New York, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad was emphasising
Washington’s difficulties in Iraq during the visit of President Jalal Talabani
of Iraq. Mr Talabani said his trip has been “100 per cent successful”, with
“joint conclusions in all fields, including security, the economy, oil and
industry”.

Mr Talabani, who leads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a close ally of the
US since the 2003 invasion, promised “good news for the Iraqi nation” that would
“see the result of this visit soon”. He advised the US to “save a little face by
leaving Iraq . . . according to a timetable, handing over responsibilities as
asked by the Iraqi government”.

John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, said he had not read the letter,
“but I understand it’s only five pages, not 18 pages, like the last one, so
that’s a step ahead”.